


The Loss of Her

by Nabielka



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/F, Grief/Mourning, Major Character Disappearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-21 00:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9521813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/pseuds/Nabielka
Summary: The news comes to Anvard.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ephemeralblossom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralblossom/gifts).



The herald had barely bowed and left before the King Lune’s sentiments of grief ran out, and his talk shifted to that of politics, the insecurity of the border, and, with a glance at Aravis, the threat to the embargos against Calormen that had only just been signed at the summit. 

But Aravis barely heard him. She saw again the herald’s approach, his bow low, his hair dishevelled. She heard again his words, as in a haze, and all along her heart pounded: gone, gone, gone. 

It was not possible. Lucy had swung herself onto her horse scarce a few days ago, in Anvard’s inner courtyard. The brooch of the reigning House of Calavar, carried secretly over the desert, that Aravis had pressed into her hand had clasped her cloak at one shoulder, and her hair, cut short and dashing as always, had moved in the wind. 

Even now Aravis waked to turn on her side, looking for that mess of hair on the pillow next to her, for the trade summit had been long and Lucy’s presence in her bed just as steadfast as Narnia’s commitments. It ached enough not to have her there; the thought of her unreachable, gone, was unbearable. 

She had studied Archenlandish etiquette with close attention with Shasta’s tutors, and was a true Tarkheena to her bones besides. Her thoughts were in turmoil, the sun dark in her eyes, but her courtesies were in perfect form. Still, she hardly knew what she spoke as she excused herself, leaving the chamber. 

She was scarcely aware of the presence of the guards outside, of the movements of people who, inclining their heads, passed out her way as she walked past them, unseeing. They knew nothing, but for her the world had changed. The last time she had walked down this corridor, an hour or so ago, two, it had been as a carefree woman. The last time she had walked these stairs she had been drafting a letter in her head, and all that time the messenger had been riding from Cair Paravel. 

It could not be that she would never now send it. Lucy could not be gone. 

She turned the corner and there was that corridor her feet had walked a thousand times, that led to the apartments Lucy had supervised being set up for her, when she had first come to Anvard. She stopped, and placed a hand up against the wall to steady herself at the memory. Lucy had walked with her, arm in arm, on that day, and had been so welcoming and so charming that Aravis had found herself already half-enamoured. The feeling had never quite passed, only changed to this constant warmth and deep affection that had made the Northern Queen ever the delight of her eyes and of her heart. 

Entering into the boudoir as they had done, she felt a little as though at any time a hand might rest against her arm, or that she might turn her head and there again Lucy would be. There was the reclining couch upon which Lucy might sit, perhaps even in the Calormene style, which was very comfortable for long periods and which Aravis had taught her, with some official correspondence in her hand. There was a lamp which would make her hair shine like gold, there were some flowers neatly arranged at her desk which might have made Lucy smile. 

Next to it lay a knife, short in the Narnian style, and straight, with an engraving of flowers into the hilt. Aravis had had the standard training given to Tarkheenas, and a little more from her brother before the western rebellion, and had been well-skilled in the use of the bow and scimitar. But her real fighting skills had been cultivated here, with Lucy’s cheerful assistance. For there seemed to be no weapon which Lucy could not use well: all sorts of knives and swords and throwing stars and bows, of all the sorts as were fashioned in diverse countries. She had left this here with a promise of teaching Aravis a few more Narnian techniques, and it was one of her own. 

It was inconceivable that she might now not keep her promise. But the herald had been so sure, and certainly the Narnians would have sent out search parties, and not abandoned the pursuit in haste. Still, as she unlaced her jacket Aravis could not shake the feeling that at any moment her maid might come in, that she might be called for because further news had come, from the birds that flew over Narnia and guarded her well, to say that really, it was all right. 

They could not be missing, they could not be dead. Not Queen Susan, who shot better than anybody, or the Kings, or even less Lucy, so brave and so bright, all of them so skilled and so well-attended it was unthinkable that any great misfortune could befall them all. 

“The Queen (may she live forever),” said Aravis to herself, though they did not venerate them so in Narnia. But the thought of wishing on her the peace of the gods as she did her mother made her throat choke up. It was impossible to accept that they would never meet again, or that if Aravis were to see her, it might only be lying cold as her brother had been, brought home from the western rebellion so many years ago that his features had blurred in her memory. 

She moved then through the room, and stopped in the doorway. Her maid had not yet attended it, and the room was dark, the curtains drawn, the bedcovers in a mess. Standing there, she could almost convince herself that rather than covering empty air, they covered Lucy. She could cross to the bed, and lean over to kiss her, lay herself in her arms.

But the bed as she reached it was cool, and as empty as she had left it. The pillow by her head was one on which Lucy’s head had rested, but her scent had had time to fade. Still, she took it up and held it tight against her chest as the tears spilled, and she wept as she had not wept in years, and cursed the day and cursed the hour Their Majesties had ridden out for the hunt.

Lucy would not have wanted her to despair. She told herself that even as the tears wet her cheeks, but it made for poor consolation. Lucy had always been so full of hope – 

She sat upright. Lucy would not waste her time crying in her rooms, Lucy's first reaction had always been: 'what can I do?', not 'oh, how terrible!'. She had shouldered duties beyond her personal concerns for years, of course, but above everything it was that Lucy trusted to herself, and trusted to Aslan. Lucy did not accept things as they came. 

Perhaps the Narnians out on patrol had missed something, riding forth in all their numbers, perhaps none of them had known their rulers very closely. Perhaps... The Lantern Waste was not so far from Archenland. Aravis pulled herself out of bed, calling for her maid and her riding garments, and called too her hopes to her. 


End file.
